This is my first post since my site redesign. Hope you like it. Getting it ready took me offline for a bit. Now it’s time to write.

For those of you who haven’t seen it in the news, there has been some serious flooding in Wisconsin. On my way into the office earlier this week I noticed that there was an extensive power outage from the same storms that created the flooding (I get in early). I had been thinking about SourceCon, it’s success last year and why it is really a must-attend show for sourcers and recruiters. How to explain that concept? I am speaking at SourceCon and I want my clients to see the educational value of attending the event.

Slamming on the brakes…. All the street lights out. Stop thinking. Don’t get into accident

Yes, all the street lights were out and I saw something wonderful, as well as disturbing. With the street lights being out, people had to cooperate. Ever watch an ant colony? What amazing cooperation. Drivers were taking turns, 4 way intersection, North side, South side, West Side, East Side. How did this cycle start? Order out of chaos? Neccessity? I don’t know, but I did have a child-like enthusiasm for watching the process. Before it was my time to go, I had a chance to see the “rules” of the crowd. North, South, West, East, North, South, West, East. When it was my turn, I had a small yet grand feeling of community. Just as it was my turn to go, some jerk in a SUV went out of turn, cut me off, and almost caused a multi-car pile up. He did not like the community process.

Stop a minute and think now. This stop light process, brought into order by crowd mentality and neccessity. It worked. People were taking turns and progress was occuring (except for the jerk). It became normal. Without thinking about it, I accepted the process. In this case, I had no choice.

Most recruiters and sourcers are in exactly this place in their day-day process. It works. it’s comfortable, others are doing a similar thing, it is accepted, you feel part of the norm.

Then it hit me. I just spent 25 minutes in near bumper-bumper traffic. This is WISCONSIN, I left California and the traffic jams 10 years ago. I hate traffic. I pass cows and farms on my commute and I like it that way.

Give me back my traffic lights. They add a 50X level of efficiency to traffic flow. (I would suggest going solar, however). I have no interest in doing what “everyone else” is doing

So what about SourceCon? SourceCon is to sourcing like a traffic light is to traffic flow. For those math geeks: ( SourceCon:Sourcing :: Traffic light:traffic flow )

SourceCon is an event to bring sourcing and recruiting to the next level. Companies are adding dedicated sourcers in record numbers. Don’t reinvent, find out the best practices from the thought leaders out there. Here are some talks that I am personally excited to see:

The Convergence of Sourcing, Recruiting, Technology, Man and the Machine: What the Future Holds – Dave Copps

The Utopian view of Executive Talent Sourcing -Jeremy Langhans

Metrics for Measuring Sourcing Effectiveness – Scott Biggerstaff

All the world’s a stage, and we are (not merely) sourcers – Matt Grove